Author: Stephenson, Benjamin
Biography:
STEPHENSON, Benjamin (1768-1814: ancestry.com)
pseudonym Ebn Osn, of Pentonville
A poor tailor, the son of John Stephenson of Newcastle Street, London, later of New Road, Pentonville, and his wife, Anne, the poet was baptized at St Mary, Whitechapel, Tower Hamlets, on 6 Mar. 1768. On 19 Apr. 1790 at St Sepulchre, he married Mary Woodrone, his senior by ten years. His 1807 Attempts at Poetry, or, Trifles in Verse, was harshly criticized in MR: “his trifles in verse are not Poetry” (MR); and in CR: “small beer of the very worst quality.” He published several poems in the Lady’s Magazine: “On Marriage” in Oct. 1807; “Dirge at Midnight” and “The Pest” in Nov. 1807; and in Feb. 1808, “Negroes Fettered, and Conducted to the Vessel which Conveys them from their Native Land. A Fragment.” (Incidentally, Stephenson’s neighbour in White Lion Street, engraver Joseph Hawksworth, also contributed to the Lady’s Magazine; his “The Soldier’s Farewell” appeared in the Apr. 1801 issue.) In 1805, he published The History of the Unfortunate Miss Mary Pool to which is Added The Good Husband (republished 1809 as The History of Miss Mary Pool). In 1806, he, his wife, and their daughter subscribed to the Poems of Charlotte Richardson (q.v.). On 21 Aug. 1814, the poet and his wife burned to death in their second-floor apartment in the house of haberdasher John Watkins, 4 King Street, Seven Dials. They were buried on 25 Aug. in St Giles in the Fields. Their only child, Mary (b 1791), the wife of fishmonger William Nash, was granted administration of their estate, valued at £250. (ancestry.com 10 Jan. 2025; CR 3d ser 12 [1808], 221; MR 67 [1808], 97; Examiner, 28 Aug. 1814; GM [Sept. 1814], 285; Names and Descriptions of the Proprietors of Unclaimed Dividends of the Bank of England [1815], 453; W. Upcott, A Biographical Dictionary of the Living Authors of Great Britain and Ireland [1816], 331; N&Q ser 10 vol. 8 [19 Oct. 1907], 316) JC